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Kurt Vonnegut: Letters
This collection includes the letter the twenty-two-year old Vonnegut wrote home immediately upon being freed from the German POW camp; wry dispatches from Vonnegut's years as a struggling writer; a letter to the CEO of Eagle Shirtmakers with a crackpot scheme to manufacture "atomic" bow ties; angry letters of protest to local school boards that tried to ban his work; letters to his children including advice like 'Don't let anybody tell you that smoking and boozing are bad for you. Here I am fifty-five years old, and I never felt better in my life'; fantastically wise letters to writers such as Norman Mailer, Gunter Grass, and Bernard Malamud; and his characteristically modest response to being called a 'great literary figure': 'I am an American fad-of a slightly higher order than the hula hoop.'
Like Vonnegut's books, his letters make you think, they make you outraged and they make you laugh. Written over a sixty-year period, and never published before, these letters are alive with the unique point of view that made Vonnegut one of the most original writers in American fiction.
Like Vonnegut's books, his letters make you think, they make you outraged and they make you laugh. Written over a sixty-year period, and never published before, these letters are alive with the unique point of view that made Vonnegut one of the most original writers in American fiction.
480 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
286 people are currently reading
5150 people want to read
About the author
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
710 books37k followersKurt Vonnegut, Junior was an American novelist, satirist, and most recently, graphic artist. He was recognized as New York State Author for 2001-2003.
He was born in Indianapolis, later the setting for many of his novels. He attended Cornell University from 1941 to 1943, where he wrote a column for the student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun. Vonnegut trained as a chemist and worked as a journalist before joining the U.S. Army and serving in World War II.
After the war, he attended University of Chicago as a graduate student in anthropology and also worked as a police reporter at the City News Bureau of Chicago. He left Chicago to work in Schenectady, New York in public relations for General Electric. He attributed his unadorned writing style to his reporting work.
His experiences as an advance scout in the Battle of the Bulge, and in particular his witnessing of the bombing of Dresden, Germany whilst a prisoner of war, would inform much of his work. This event would also form the core of his most famous work, Slaughterhouse-Five, the book which would make him a millionaire. This acerbic 200-page book is what most people mean when they describe a work as "Vonnegutian" in scope.
Vonnegut was a self-proclaimed humanist and socialist (influenced by the style of Indiana's own Eugene V. Debs) and a lifelong supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
The novelist is known for works blending satire, black comedy and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973)
He was born in Indianapolis, later the setting for many of his novels. He attended Cornell University from 1941 to 1943, where he wrote a column for the student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun. Vonnegut trained as a chemist and worked as a journalist before joining the U.S. Army and serving in World War II.
After the war, he attended University of Chicago as a graduate student in anthropology and also worked as a police reporter at the City News Bureau of Chicago. He left Chicago to work in Schenectady, New York in public relations for General Electric. He attributed his unadorned writing style to his reporting work.
His experiences as an advance scout in the Battle of the Bulge, and in particular his witnessing of the bombing of Dresden, Germany whilst a prisoner of war, would inform much of his work. This event would also form the core of his most famous work, Slaughterhouse-Five, the book which would make him a millionaire. This acerbic 200-page book is what most people mean when they describe a work as "Vonnegutian" in scope.
Vonnegut was a self-proclaimed humanist and socialist (influenced by the style of Indiana's own Eugene V. Debs) and a lifelong supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
The novelist is known for works blending satire, black comedy and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 241 reviews
September 1, 2021
A couple of years ago, I made it to the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library in Indianapolis. I wanted to pick up a book that (having read most everything he wrote) would feel special to this trip.
There of course isn’t nothing particularly special about this book, of course. It’s probably sitting at your local used book store right now. That said, this is an unique book as it is probably the closest we will get to a Vonnegut autobiography or diary.
I have a few “Letters” books on my shelf. It’s an interesting kind of genre in that in most cases, is only for die hards and obsessives.
In this case, though, Wakefield has done such an amazing job of organizing the letters and adding background that it truly tells a story. Granted, that might be more than what most require, such specificities like Kurt’s Iowa City days (a town I am well acquainted with) really make it special.
In any case, Vonnegut fans will be happy with this. His stories always had an element of realism so the voice and it’s not far removed from the day to day Vonnegut.
Which adds an element. Fans love the cranky irascible old man. It must surely be another thing to hear those barbs when Kurt is your employee, college buddy, associate, or particularly when he’s your ex-spouse or step Dad.
Strangely, I think the books works better as it goes along. Instead of becoming tired of the writer’s life, the reader gets drawn in.
As a fan with a finite amount of Vonnegut’s work in the world, this really is a treat of an extra piece of work in the Vonnegut bibliography.
February 5, 2017
In the Trump era, it's Vonnegut's words that still shine. "God damn it, you've got to be kind." Few equally beautiful words have even been written. That old atheist Vonnegut was right: Even if we fail, all the effort was worth it for the friendships, the struggles, and the laughs along the way.
January 14, 2013
I've never read a book of an author's correspondence before. At first, it was actually a bit unnerving. As obsessed as I was/am with Kurt Vonnegut (deducing his address from his autobiographical fiction so that I could mail him birthday cards, getting his daughter to meet me for coffee in Northampton, MA), I felt awkward reading such personal communiques. First, as with Shields's biography I am forced to see my hero as a mere human. This is especially uneasy when reading about his early life, when he was just a regular guy. I felt like a voyeur spying on intimate family interactions, like in his heartfelt letter to relatives: “How is KIT?????...Does he walk yet? How did he take the trip?...Kiss your beautiful child for us, and give him a happy drool from his cousin mark. I think Kit would be more interested in Mark now that he makes noises…Would that they could grow up together” (22). Or the sheer joy he expresses over owning a house and the gratitude he expresses for his brother to his father. Then there's the feeling of being a Peeping Tom peeping into someone's deep worries/insecurities/troubles: “My life (at 33 years of age) hangs by a thread. That damned play has just got to be produced. Yet, it looks like it won’t be. My sister is poverty-stricken, and I mean poverty stricken, at age 38, and she says she is damn well fed up with the character building aspects of disappointment. Me too” (62). Conversely, I do think that much of the pathos comes from the very real realization that Kurt Vonnegut is a very real person.
Once I became accustomed to my place at the window sill of his life
,
there was nothing left for me to do but purely enjoy this reading experience. I still got that emotional beat in my chest and moisture in my eye when I'd read his letters to his family, but it wasn't twinged with guilt. His letters to his children (especially those to Nanny, perhaps because she is the most real to me) are so incredibly poignant that it amazes me people still sent letters like that in the late 20th century--and it makes me lament the loss of letter writing and disdain the text-speak that has taken its place. One of my favorite quotations, from a letter to Nanny: “You’re learning now that you do not inhabit a solid, reliable social structure—that the older people around you are worried, moody, goofy human beings who themselves were little kids only a few days ago” (176).
Two other quotations I liked:
To describe his writing style: “I write with a big black crayon, you know, grasped in a grubby kindergarten fist…If you want to kind of try what I do, take life seriously but none of the people in it” (139).
To describe Timequake: “It’s beyond post-modern. It’s positively posthumous” (372).
Once I became accustomed to my place at the window sill of his life
,there was nothing left for me to do but purely enjoy this reading experience. I still got that emotional beat in my chest and moisture in my eye when I'd read his letters to his family, but it wasn't twinged with guilt. His letters to his children (especially those to Nanny, perhaps because she is the most real to me) are so incredibly poignant that it amazes me people still sent letters like that in the late 20th century--and it makes me lament the loss of letter writing and disdain the text-speak that has taken its place. One of my favorite quotations, from a letter to Nanny: “You’re learning now that you do not inhabit a solid, reliable social structure—that the older people around you are worried, moody, goofy human beings who themselves were little kids only a few days ago” (176).
Two other quotations I liked:
To describe his writing style: “I write with a big black crayon, you know, grasped in a grubby kindergarten fist…If you want to kind of try what I do, take life seriously but none of the people in it” (139).
To describe Timequake: “It’s beyond post-modern. It’s positively posthumous” (372).
September 29, 2022
What do you do after you've read all of Vonnegut's novels, short stories, autobiographical material, and commencement speeches? You read a book containing all the letters he wrote to friends, family, and colleagues. For me, this was fascinating because you see the true Vonnegut that isn't revealed in his fiction writing. It probably won't appeal to anyone other than the hardcore Vonnegut fan but if that description applies to you then you'll likely find this book incredibly interesting.
October 21, 2014
On April 11, 2007, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. passed away. I was just beginning my second trimester, and did not yet know we were going to have a son. My husband and I had a girl’s name all picked out, but were still throwing boy names around. After the news came of Vonnegut’s death, my husband and I were discussing it over dinner. I’ve read more of his works, and was telling him why he was one of my favorite writers. My husband realized that Vonnegut spelled his first name the same as Kurt Cobain, one of his favorite musicians. That night, we knew we had found our boy’s name. Our son Kurt just celebrated his sixth birthday, which happens to fall on the anniversary of John Lennon’s birth. The kid does not lack inspiration for greatness, and I look forward to seeing what he accomplishes in life.
So, I become incredibly excited whenever a new Vonnegut book comes out, probably much more excited than my husband was at the prospect of a Nirvana reunion.
I was especially intrigued when I learned “Letters” was being published. I added it to my Amazon wish list prior to its release date, something I rarely do. Vonnegut’s books tend to have an autobiographical tinge to them, and I was anxious to have insight into his personal life via this collection of correspondence. I also read how this collection included letters to schools that banned “Slaughterhouse 5,” and correctly assume he would have put those people squarely in their place. I was not disappointed. The letter written to one Charles McCarthy, chairman of the Drake School Board of Drake, North Dakota, on November 16, 1973 alone is worth the purchase price of the book, the hardback issue.
Especially fascinating were Vonnegut’s letters to his children, particularly the ones to his daughter Nanny after he and his wife Jane separated. These letters were particularly raw and openly honest about his state of mind, depression and the shortcomings as a father he saw in himself. He addressed all his children, including “the orphans,” the nephews he raised after the tragic deaths of his sister and brother-in-law, as adults. I noticed he tended to speak candidly to them as if they were more trusted friends than his children, often offering sage advice regarding life and career. In one letter to his daughter Nanny, he spoke quite frankly about the divorce, his relationship with Jill, and reassured her repeatedly that it was not of any doing of hers or her siblings, that he did not leave her mother for another woman, and that he still deeply cared for and valued his friendship with her mother, Jane.
In a letter dated November 2, 1972, he writes to Nanny:
“You have caught onto something I only learned in the past month or so – that terrific depressions are going to crunch me down at regular intervals, and that they have nothing to do with what is going on around me.”
In a letter dated March 17, 1974, he acknowledged the difficulties of the divorce and changing family dynamic:
“As for Jill herself: … It would help a lot, though, if you would understand that she has been very good to me during the most shattering years of my life, and that she was not the one who did the shattering. Jane didn’t do the shattering, either, and neither did money or success. The entirety of life did the shattering.”
His relationship with Nanny was particularly troubled and difficult. Vonnegut often took the blame for their lack of closeness and understanding of each other.
“It is only natural that you should feel reserved and insecure when you’re with me, since I’ve caused two huge disruptions in the continuity of the family, and since you saw so much of me when I worked at home, when I had to raise such hell in order to gain privacy in which to write. Also, I was worried sick about money all the time, and I had no friends on Cape Cod who had any idea what my sort of work entailed. Just to clarify the two disruptions I’m talking about, I mean the adoption of the Adams and my leaving the Cape for New York. So there we are.” (January 10, 1973)
Yet, he was capable of being hurt and at least once let her know.
“I would find such indifference to my feelings painful, even if it came from a little kid. You are chronologically a grown-up now. But you are clearly unable to imagine me as a living, interesting, sensitive, vulnerable human being. God only knows what you think I am.” (August 19, 1975)
It was these scattered letters to Nanny that I found most touching, his repeated attempts to connect with his daughter and his struggles to forge relationships with all his children, as well as his continued devotion to his first wife and love. I found it strange that even though there were many letters to his children, including the Adams boys and his first wife Jane, there are no letters at all to his second wife, Jill and the daughter they adopted together. All we know of these relationships is from references in letters to others.
The book opens with an introduction written by the editor, which reads as a fascinating, witty mini biography. The letters are organized chronologically, each decade its own chapter with an introduction also written by the editor. There were actually only a few letters regarding censorship or politics, but the few were truly treasured gems. In the chapters of letters from the 1960s and 1970s, there were quite a few letters that spoke of his time in the army and as a POW in Dresden. These were fascinating as well. The bulk of the letters were of a professional nature among industry colleagues, or updating friends and family of his latest professional endeavors. While some of this is interesting and I learned a great deal about Vonnegut’s varied body of work, after a while it became tedious. At the most, these served as the background from which the really interesting passages stood out.
The editor, Dan Wakefield, was a close friend of Vonnegut’s for most of his life. In a way this really added to the content, as he shared much detail in the introductions to each chapter and in the notes for individual letters. Through these details and Vonnegut’s own words, a picture was painted of Vonnegut as a troubled, complicated, flawed man and artist, and a loving, devoted and loyal person. As a close friend, Wakefield is able to show us Vonnegut as few others could, but he is also able to protect his friend and mentor. In the Editor’s Note, Wakefield states that he omitted passages of letters to avoid repetition and edit out private details and irrelevant or obscure references. This makes me wonder what the ellipses replace, and what secret skeletons are left in the Vonnegut closet. Perhaps it is just as well.
It is often debated whenever the private correspondence of deceased famous people is published to an international audience, whether this is an invasion of privacy. Surely, people like Vonnegut and Ed Abbey (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) never intended for their day to day correspondence to be digested by the masses. Usually these books are researched, collected and edited all with the expressed approval of family, but does the family even have that right? I have been to many museum exhibits showcasing the letters of the likes of Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain. The only difference here is the passage of time.
In October 1995, Vonnegut’s brother Bernard asked why information about the artist was necessary to judge paintings. His response:
“Contemplating a purported work of art is a social activity. Either you have a good time or you don’t. You don’t have to say why afterwards. You don’t have to say anything. … People capable of loving some paintings or etchings or whatever can rarely do this without knowing something about the artist. Again, the situation is social rather than scientific. Any work of art is one half of a conversation between two human beings, and it helps a lot to know who is talking at you. … So I dare to suggest that no picture can attract serious attention without a human being attached to it in the viewer’s mind.” (October 11, 1995)
This can easily be applied to the pictures painted by an author, not to mention one who also happened to draw and design silk screen prints. I believe that it is possible to get quite a lot out of a piece of art as it stands alone. Some of the most moving poems in the classical canon are by “Anonymous.” I have often been incredibly moved by a painting or photograph before knowing anything about the artist. However, you can only get so far before your mind starts to subconsciously fill in the gaps of missing information. After a while, you start imagining a fantasy of the artist, your own personal version, necessary to continue the conversation initiated by the piece of art. This is inevitable unless you learn more about the author or artist, which is why people publish biographies and autobiographies. Publishing correspondence is simply an extension of that, as it gives us added insight of authors who have passed away. After all, if we continued to keep things private after the person passed away, we wouldn’t have been able to read any poems by Emily Dickinson.
Overall, this collection of letters was not what I was expecting. I expected more pearls of wisdom and less snippets of a normal, humdrum life. It was still an interesting read, giving both insights into the life of the author and also life in general throughout the decades. Vonnegut’s letters were mostly void of the creative tone that encompass his novels, though his quintessential cynicism and wit is prevalent all the way to the letters written shortly before his death. Despite not having an overly happy and satisfying life, Vonnegut continued to be productive till the end, accomplishing much in both his personal and professional life. I hope, when he closed his eyes for the last time in early April 2007, he was able to find the peace that comes with great accomplishment.
So, I become incredibly excited whenever a new Vonnegut book comes out, probably much more excited than my husband was at the prospect of a Nirvana reunion.
I was especially intrigued when I learned “Letters” was being published. I added it to my Amazon wish list prior to its release date, something I rarely do. Vonnegut’s books tend to have an autobiographical tinge to them, and I was anxious to have insight into his personal life via this collection of correspondence. I also read how this collection included letters to schools that banned “Slaughterhouse 5,” and correctly assume he would have put those people squarely in their place. I was not disappointed. The letter written to one Charles McCarthy, chairman of the Drake School Board of Drake, North Dakota, on November 16, 1973 alone is worth the purchase price of the book, the hardback issue.
Especially fascinating were Vonnegut’s letters to his children, particularly the ones to his daughter Nanny after he and his wife Jane separated. These letters were particularly raw and openly honest about his state of mind, depression and the shortcomings as a father he saw in himself. He addressed all his children, including “the orphans,” the nephews he raised after the tragic deaths of his sister and brother-in-law, as adults. I noticed he tended to speak candidly to them as if they were more trusted friends than his children, often offering sage advice regarding life and career. In one letter to his daughter Nanny, he spoke quite frankly about the divorce, his relationship with Jill, and reassured her repeatedly that it was not of any doing of hers or her siblings, that he did not leave her mother for another woman, and that he still deeply cared for and valued his friendship with her mother, Jane.
In a letter dated November 2, 1972, he writes to Nanny:
“You have caught onto something I only learned in the past month or so – that terrific depressions are going to crunch me down at regular intervals, and that they have nothing to do with what is going on around me.”
In a letter dated March 17, 1974, he acknowledged the difficulties of the divorce and changing family dynamic:
“As for Jill herself: … It would help a lot, though, if you would understand that she has been very good to me during the most shattering years of my life, and that she was not the one who did the shattering. Jane didn’t do the shattering, either, and neither did money or success. The entirety of life did the shattering.”
His relationship with Nanny was particularly troubled and difficult. Vonnegut often took the blame for their lack of closeness and understanding of each other.
“It is only natural that you should feel reserved and insecure when you’re with me, since I’ve caused two huge disruptions in the continuity of the family, and since you saw so much of me when I worked at home, when I had to raise such hell in order to gain privacy in which to write. Also, I was worried sick about money all the time, and I had no friends on Cape Cod who had any idea what my sort of work entailed. Just to clarify the two disruptions I’m talking about, I mean the adoption of the Adams and my leaving the Cape for New York. So there we are.” (January 10, 1973)
Yet, he was capable of being hurt and at least once let her know.
“I would find such indifference to my feelings painful, even if it came from a little kid. You are chronologically a grown-up now. But you are clearly unable to imagine me as a living, interesting, sensitive, vulnerable human being. God only knows what you think I am.” (August 19, 1975)
It was these scattered letters to Nanny that I found most touching, his repeated attempts to connect with his daughter and his struggles to forge relationships with all his children, as well as his continued devotion to his first wife and love. I found it strange that even though there were many letters to his children, including the Adams boys and his first wife Jane, there are no letters at all to his second wife, Jill and the daughter they adopted together. All we know of these relationships is from references in letters to others.
The book opens with an introduction written by the editor, which reads as a fascinating, witty mini biography. The letters are organized chronologically, each decade its own chapter with an introduction also written by the editor. There were actually only a few letters regarding censorship or politics, but the few were truly treasured gems. In the chapters of letters from the 1960s and 1970s, there were quite a few letters that spoke of his time in the army and as a POW in Dresden. These were fascinating as well. The bulk of the letters were of a professional nature among industry colleagues, or updating friends and family of his latest professional endeavors. While some of this is interesting and I learned a great deal about Vonnegut’s varied body of work, after a while it became tedious. At the most, these served as the background from which the really interesting passages stood out.
The editor, Dan Wakefield, was a close friend of Vonnegut’s for most of his life. In a way this really added to the content, as he shared much detail in the introductions to each chapter and in the notes for individual letters. Through these details and Vonnegut’s own words, a picture was painted of Vonnegut as a troubled, complicated, flawed man and artist, and a loving, devoted and loyal person. As a close friend, Wakefield is able to show us Vonnegut as few others could, but he is also able to protect his friend and mentor. In the Editor’s Note, Wakefield states that he omitted passages of letters to avoid repetition and edit out private details and irrelevant or obscure references. This makes me wonder what the ellipses replace, and what secret skeletons are left in the Vonnegut closet. Perhaps it is just as well.
It is often debated whenever the private correspondence of deceased famous people is published to an international audience, whether this is an invasion of privacy. Surely, people like Vonnegut and Ed Abbey (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) never intended for their day to day correspondence to be digested by the masses. Usually these books are researched, collected and edited all with the expressed approval of family, but does the family even have that right? I have been to many museum exhibits showcasing the letters of the likes of Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain. The only difference here is the passage of time.
In October 1995, Vonnegut’s brother Bernard asked why information about the artist was necessary to judge paintings. His response:
“Contemplating a purported work of art is a social activity. Either you have a good time or you don’t. You don’t have to say why afterwards. You don’t have to say anything. … People capable of loving some paintings or etchings or whatever can rarely do this without knowing something about the artist. Again, the situation is social rather than scientific. Any work of art is one half of a conversation between two human beings, and it helps a lot to know who is talking at you. … So I dare to suggest that no picture can attract serious attention without a human being attached to it in the viewer’s mind.” (October 11, 1995)
This can easily be applied to the pictures painted by an author, not to mention one who also happened to draw and design silk screen prints. I believe that it is possible to get quite a lot out of a piece of art as it stands alone. Some of the most moving poems in the classical canon are by “Anonymous.” I have often been incredibly moved by a painting or photograph before knowing anything about the artist. However, you can only get so far before your mind starts to subconsciously fill in the gaps of missing information. After a while, you start imagining a fantasy of the artist, your own personal version, necessary to continue the conversation initiated by the piece of art. This is inevitable unless you learn more about the author or artist, which is why people publish biographies and autobiographies. Publishing correspondence is simply an extension of that, as it gives us added insight of authors who have passed away. After all, if we continued to keep things private after the person passed away, we wouldn’t have been able to read any poems by Emily Dickinson.
Overall, this collection of letters was not what I was expecting. I expected more pearls of wisdom and less snippets of a normal, humdrum life. It was still an interesting read, giving both insights into the life of the author and also life in general throughout the decades. Vonnegut’s letters were mostly void of the creative tone that encompass his novels, though his quintessential cynicism and wit is prevalent all the way to the letters written shortly before his death. Despite not having an overly happy and satisfying life, Vonnegut continued to be productive till the end, accomplishing much in both his personal and professional life. I hope, when he closed his eyes for the last time in early April 2007, he was able to find the peace that comes with great accomplishment.
March 28, 2016
Esta e outras revisões de livros em www.dosnossoslivros.blogspot.com
Se existe alguma coisa semelhante ao conceito de Destino, estava escrito que o António me daria este livro nesse dia tão importante e alegre que foi a minha defesa de Doutoramento. Que melhor presente para alguém que começa uma nova vida do que um registo do humanismo de Vonnegut, o meu autor favorito? Também estava destinado que eu só viria a ler este livro quase dois anos depois de me ter ido oferecido, uns meses antes de fazer trinta anos. Mais uma vez, numa altura de novo ciclo.
Este é o único autor de quem aceitei ler uma espécie de biografia através das cartas pessoais que escreveu aos amigos e familiares, desde o seu regresso da II Guerra Mundial até poucos meses antes da sua morte, aqui reunidas por Dan Wakefield, um amigo. Aqui é descrito, pela voz própria do autor, os seus medos enquanto aspirante a autor, as suas preocupações enquanto marido e pai de uma família numerosa, enquanto espectador e participante em sérios e dilacerantes acasos da vida, como a morte da sua irmã, o seu divórcio e, pouco a pouco, à medida que o tempo passa, da partida dos seus entes queridos. De particular sentimento são as cartas à filha biológica mais nova, Nanny Vonnegut, a filha que mais sofreu com a separação dos pais e o afastamento físico do pai quando este trocou a sua casa por Nova Iorque. Também gostei de todas as referências a como a escrita o consumia e o fazia sentir como "um homem sem braços nem pernas e com um lápis de cera na boca", e em que sentiu vontade de desistir da escrita, mas não o fez. So it goes.
Mas a vida não foi apenas uma sucessão de eventos melancólicos para Vonnegut. Fez muitas amizades, manteve fielmente muitas delas, viajou imenso pela Europa e por sítios mais exóticos, manteve firme a sua escrita, a sua posição e visão sobre a sociedade, reiterou a sua posição em relação à liberdade de pensamento.
O espírito está cá, claro. Das suas cartas - não editadas, naturalmente - reconhece-se o seu humor mordaz, a sua permanente inteligência irónica, e aquela doçura de quem ama o Homem mas não consegue não sentir-se desapontado.
Sempre tive a impressão de que Vonnegut tinha isto tudo bem resolvido. Da sua voz mais íntima, fiquei a saber como viveu, o que pensou, o que sonhou e o que concretizou, o que aceitou, o que procurou entender, como respirou fundo e continuou. Para frente, para a frente, para a frente. Sempre com humor, sempre com uma palavra calorosa para o amigo ou familiar, sempre com a aceitação, compaixão e compreensão que destinava ao Homem enquanto criança rebelde que nem sempre sabe o que faz. Foi assim que ficou resolvido. Dentro do que é ficar resolvido num mundo caótico como este.
Quem me dera que ainda estivesse vivo, que pudéssemos conversar.
Dizia ele, a certa altura da sua vida: That’s what I feel right now. I’ve written books. Lots of them. Please, I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do. Can I go home now?
Sim, Sr. Vonnegut. Pode descansar agora.
Se existe alguma coisa semelhante ao conceito de Destino, estava escrito que o António me daria este livro nesse dia tão importante e alegre que foi a minha defesa de Doutoramento. Que melhor presente para alguém que começa uma nova vida do que um registo do humanismo de Vonnegut, o meu autor favorito? Também estava destinado que eu só viria a ler este livro quase dois anos depois de me ter ido oferecido, uns meses antes de fazer trinta anos. Mais uma vez, numa altura de novo ciclo.
Este é o único autor de quem aceitei ler uma espécie de biografia através das cartas pessoais que escreveu aos amigos e familiares, desde o seu regresso da II Guerra Mundial até poucos meses antes da sua morte, aqui reunidas por Dan Wakefield, um amigo. Aqui é descrito, pela voz própria do autor, os seus medos enquanto aspirante a autor, as suas preocupações enquanto marido e pai de uma família numerosa, enquanto espectador e participante em sérios e dilacerantes acasos da vida, como a morte da sua irmã, o seu divórcio e, pouco a pouco, à medida que o tempo passa, da partida dos seus entes queridos. De particular sentimento são as cartas à filha biológica mais nova, Nanny Vonnegut, a filha que mais sofreu com a separação dos pais e o afastamento físico do pai quando este trocou a sua casa por Nova Iorque. Também gostei de todas as referências a como a escrita o consumia e o fazia sentir como "um homem sem braços nem pernas e com um lápis de cera na boca", e em que sentiu vontade de desistir da escrita, mas não o fez. So it goes.
Mas a vida não foi apenas uma sucessão de eventos melancólicos para Vonnegut. Fez muitas amizades, manteve fielmente muitas delas, viajou imenso pela Europa e por sítios mais exóticos, manteve firme a sua escrita, a sua posição e visão sobre a sociedade, reiterou a sua posição em relação à liberdade de pensamento.
O espírito está cá, claro. Das suas cartas - não editadas, naturalmente - reconhece-se o seu humor mordaz, a sua permanente inteligência irónica, e aquela doçura de quem ama o Homem mas não consegue não sentir-se desapontado.
Sempre tive a impressão de que Vonnegut tinha isto tudo bem resolvido. Da sua voz mais íntima, fiquei a saber como viveu, o que pensou, o que sonhou e o que concretizou, o que aceitou, o que procurou entender, como respirou fundo e continuou. Para frente, para a frente, para a frente. Sempre com humor, sempre com uma palavra calorosa para o amigo ou familiar, sempre com a aceitação, compaixão e compreensão que destinava ao Homem enquanto criança rebelde que nem sempre sabe o que faz. Foi assim que ficou resolvido. Dentro do que é ficar resolvido num mundo caótico como este.
Quem me dera que ainda estivesse vivo, que pudéssemos conversar.
Dizia ele, a certa altura da sua vida: That’s what I feel right now. I’ve written books. Lots of them. Please, I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do. Can I go home now?
Sim, Sr. Vonnegut. Pode descansar agora.
November 4, 2012
I enjoy reading collections of letters from novelists, although I'm not sure most of them were ever intended to see the light of publication. These letters cover from Vonnegut's liberation as a POW, to the last weeks of his life, when he admitted he was no longer writing anything besides letters.
Most of the letters are glib and dryly humorous and injected with the familiar Vonnegut anomie, and anyone seeking bold insights into the inner workings of Kurt Vonnegut might be disappointed. The early years, when he was taking magazine hack work and inventing board games and bowtie designs in order to try and make a buck, are well-described. There are generally no detailed blow-by-blows of the creative process, other than to describe writing as a financial dead-end. There are bitchy exchanges with agents. The depression he battled for much of his life shows up reliably throughout the decades. There is evidence of various family dysfunctions. There is very little anger and a good deal of sadness. It is fairly obvious his second marriage was a grim place to be for the last 15 years of his life, even if it didn't start that way. Restoring the family fortune (wiped out in the Depression) was important to him, and Vonnegut frequently points out how many people are depending on his paycheck. The threat of censorship and the struggles of writers in totalitarian regimes were critical battles worth waging. Critics stung him with their conclusions that his books were just garbage written for hippies. But like Bukowski says, maybe true genius is saying something profound in a simple way?
The editor cleaned up the grammar and spelling errors and some of the cryptically confusing inside stuff. However, a few of the letters still come off as cryptic, although entertaining. I don't know much more about Vonnegut than I did when I started the book, although I'm not exactly a Vonnegut scholar. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this one.
I was going to loan this book to my wife to read next but Vonnegut made me think twice about it after reading something he wrote in one of his letters. . . "educating a beautiful woman is like pouring honey into a fine Swiss watch. Everything stops."
Most of the letters are glib and dryly humorous and injected with the familiar Vonnegut anomie, and anyone seeking bold insights into the inner workings of Kurt Vonnegut might be disappointed. The early years, when he was taking magazine hack work and inventing board games and bowtie designs in order to try and make a buck, are well-described. There are generally no detailed blow-by-blows of the creative process, other than to describe writing as a financial dead-end. There are bitchy exchanges with agents. The depression he battled for much of his life shows up reliably throughout the decades. There is evidence of various family dysfunctions. There is very little anger and a good deal of sadness. It is fairly obvious his second marriage was a grim place to be for the last 15 years of his life, even if it didn't start that way. Restoring the family fortune (wiped out in the Depression) was important to him, and Vonnegut frequently points out how many people are depending on his paycheck. The threat of censorship and the struggles of writers in totalitarian regimes were critical battles worth waging. Critics stung him with their conclusions that his books were just garbage written for hippies. But like Bukowski says, maybe true genius is saying something profound in a simple way?
The editor cleaned up the grammar and spelling errors and some of the cryptically confusing inside stuff. However, a few of the letters still come off as cryptic, although entertaining. I don't know much more about Vonnegut than I did when I started the book, although I'm not exactly a Vonnegut scholar. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this one.
I was going to loan this book to my wife to read next but Vonnegut made me think twice about it after reading something he wrote in one of his letters. . . "educating a beautiful woman is like pouring honey into a fine Swiss watch. Everything stops."
January 8, 2023
Although I don’t think I could me more obsessed with an author as I am for Vonnegut, why would I rate a compilation of letters 5 stars? Yes it was deeply revealing and compels my interest in KV even more but then again it is just a bunch of letters so it wasn’t purely entertaining. Having said that I guess I shouldn’t rate books on a scale of whether they were entertaining or not. Oh well.
What better way to get to know someone than read the letters they have sent throughout their lifetime? Extensive, and at times, uncomfortable, as it was, I felt as thought I knew Vonnegut personally while reading. I wish letters were still a thing today because I don’t think there exists a mode of communication that comes close to how intimately letters capture someone’s disposition or feelings. Texting is great but it would be weird to make a compilation of every text you’ve sent to friends and family after your death. Just the sheer fact that someone kept on file all of those letters is crazy too.
Well…. I love Vonnegut and everything he had to offer in terms of wisdom and wit, whether he knew his words would be published or not.
What better way to get to know someone than read the letters they have sent throughout their lifetime? Extensive, and at times, uncomfortable, as it was, I felt as thought I knew Vonnegut personally while reading. I wish letters were still a thing today because I don’t think there exists a mode of communication that comes close to how intimately letters capture someone’s disposition or feelings. Texting is great but it would be weird to make a compilation of every text you’ve sent to friends and family after your death. Just the sheer fact that someone kept on file all of those letters is crazy too.
Well…. I love Vonnegut and everything he had to offer in terms of wisdom and wit, whether he knew his words would be published or not.
February 12, 2021
Vonnegut is a young man's writer. You're supposed to find him and love him in college, and then grow out of him later. But I still like him even though I'm well on my way towards middle age. He's one of my favorite science fiction novelists as well as one of my favorite satirists. I also think he writes with a lot of style. It's a clear, straight forward, and frequently hilarious style, perfect for what he wants to do.
I like reading the occasional collection of letters. I guess this is a genre that will die out with the advent of the internet. I suppose people still write emails, and maybe social media posts will one day be compiled into book form and published (eww), but letters are a great literary form. They allow us to look into the lives of their authors, to catch glimpses of their true selves (even if a person like Vonnegut was certainly aware that his letters would probably one day be published), to see their private moments. I enjoyed Vonnegut's letters. They are frequently amusing and provided insights into the man's writing. Well worth reading for any fan of the writer.
I like reading the occasional collection of letters. I guess this is a genre that will die out with the advent of the internet. I suppose people still write emails, and maybe social media posts will one day be compiled into book form and published (eww), but letters are a great literary form. They allow us to look into the lives of their authors, to catch glimpses of their true selves (even if a person like Vonnegut was certainly aware that his letters would probably one day be published), to see their private moments. I enjoyed Vonnegut's letters. They are frequently amusing and provided insights into the man's writing. Well worth reading for any fan of the writer.
September 8, 2024
Wow- that’s a long break between starting and finishing this book. But, like a poetry collection, a volume of letters can be spread out over a long period of time.
I adore Vonnegut. And it was a pleasure getting to read his letters.
I adore Vonnegut. And it was a pleasure getting to read his letters.
February 23, 2022
A revealing if not always obviously edifying collection of letters that exhibits both the public Vonnegut – that is, Vonnegut as he wished to be and often was: compassionate; warm; funny in a way that no-one else ever quite has been – and the more difficult private creature: spiky and even spiteful when wounded; at times tediously money-minded; slogging away at work that always seemed effortless.
There’s gossip here if that’s what you’re after (and most journalists covering its publication were) – about the true origins of Billy Pilgrim, Vonnegut’s 1965 affair, or his second wife’s subsequent betrayal – but the real delight is in his use of the language: the echoes of his signature phrases and themes, the genesis of others, the way he caps each letter with the perfect sign-off, the matching of theme and style.
His letter to a baseball team seeking sponsorship is wonderful, and his evisceration of literary critic Anatole Broyard utterly devastating, but it’s the emotionally complex letters to his daughter Nanny that form the centre of this book. She felt abandoned when her dad left the family unit (a decision he starkly outlines in a confession to a friend that at a stroke cuts a gash into his reputation as America’s grandfather), and their complex relationship results in letters from Vonnegut that can be wise, reconciliatory or desperately unhappy and splenetic, but are beneath those things utterly loving.
It is not an unstintintingly insightful or entertaining collection but if you care about Kurt – and can embrace his flaws and complexities as much as you can the projected, accepted image – then it is essential.
There’s gossip here if that’s what you’re after (and most journalists covering its publication were) – about the true origins of Billy Pilgrim, Vonnegut’s 1965 affair, or his second wife’s subsequent betrayal – but the real delight is in his use of the language: the echoes of his signature phrases and themes, the genesis of others, the way he caps each letter with the perfect sign-off, the matching of theme and style.
His letter to a baseball team seeking sponsorship is wonderful, and his evisceration of literary critic Anatole Broyard utterly devastating, but it’s the emotionally complex letters to his daughter Nanny that form the centre of this book. She felt abandoned when her dad left the family unit (a decision he starkly outlines in a confession to a friend that at a stroke cuts a gash into his reputation as America’s grandfather), and their complex relationship results in letters from Vonnegut that can be wise, reconciliatory or desperately unhappy and splenetic, but are beneath those things utterly loving.
It is not an unstintintingly insightful or entertaining collection but if you care about Kurt – and can embrace his flaws and complexities as much as you can the projected, accepted image – then it is essential.
March 13, 2019
Read Harder Challenge number one: An epistolary novel or collection of letters.
I started this first Read Harder Challenge thinking it would be easy. Vonnegut is one of my favourite authors, and even in the early going (before he was really pursuing a career as an author), the letters were well written and full of his wit.
However, I did find it hard going - reading for more than five minutes was exhausting ... the letters didn't quite add up to a story, and there was nothing driving me to the next page. All correspondence was one way, so there's nothing in the way of dialogue, and it's clear that Vonnegut is projecting the self he wants his reader to see in the letters - it's most often not hugely personal or honest, and you can see the differences between friends, colleagues, family, and strangers. In this regard, a future version of such a book for a person in today's world might be a curated set of posts to social media.
It was, however, an interesting and different way to view a person's life and work. A worthwhile Read Harder Challenge.
I started this first Read Harder Challenge thinking it would be easy. Vonnegut is one of my favourite authors, and even in the early going (before he was really pursuing a career as an author), the letters were well written and full of his wit.
However, I did find it hard going - reading for more than five minutes was exhausting ... the letters didn't quite add up to a story, and there was nothing driving me to the next page. All correspondence was one way, so there's nothing in the way of dialogue, and it's clear that Vonnegut is projecting the self he wants his reader to see in the letters - it's most often not hugely personal or honest, and you can see the differences between friends, colleagues, family, and strangers. In this regard, a future version of such a book for a person in today's world might be a curated set of posts to social media.
It was, however, an interesting and different way to view a person's life and work. A worthwhile Read Harder Challenge.
March 13, 2014
I received this book as a giveaway through Goodreads. Thank you very much for the opportunity to read and review this book. This review is also posted on my blog, at biblio-filia.com.
Dear Neil Gaiman, Christopher Barzak, and Maureen McHugh,
Dear Richard Russo, Ann Patchett, and Jonathan Lethem,
and dear Kevin Powers, dear Patrick Ness, and dear Erin Morganstern -
Twenty years from now, I don't want to read "The Collected Facebook Statuses of ." Nor do I want to read "The Collected Blog Posts of .", or even "The Twitter Feed of ."
Do you have a fellow author you mentor? Are you writing them letters? How about children, aunts, cousins, high school friends, teachers - do you sit down and write them a letter once in a while?
Please do.
I have just finished reading Letters by Kurt Vonnegut, edited by his friend and fellow author Dan Wakefield. I feel like a door has been opened into the mind and life of Mr. Vonnegut, and my impression of the man and his writing has been utterly changed and deepened.
I guess I had always assumed that Kurt Vonnegut was probably most like his character Kilgore Trout, the strange and stoically unsuccessful scifi author that is featured in many of Vonnegut's novels. Instead, I have come to know a man who cared passionately about his family - including his former wife Jane. He kept up a correspondence with many other writers, especially the authors he met while teaching at the Iowa Writer's Workshop. His encouragement and advice to these writers continued from the time he met them in the late sixties, all the way up until his death in 2007.
He also wrote to his teachers, army friends, and kept up a lifelong correspondence with friends from his high school in Indianapolis.
Vonnegut also felt very strongly about censorship and free speech. There are quite a few letters in this collection, previously unpublished, sent privately to the towns and school boards that proposed banning his works from their libraries.
Standout correspondence from Vonnegut that touched my heart were his tender, often apologetic letters to his daughter Nanny. Nanny appears to have had a difficult time with her parents divorce - more difficult than her parents, even, and Vonnegut time and again reassures her that the divorce had nothing to do with her or another woman. The letters are those of a man whose heart is laid bare:
That's not to say that Vonnegut doesn't get a bit testy, a la Kilgore, from time to time. Difficulties with his agents and lawyers are documented in his letters. It's comforting to know, from editor Wakefield's notes, that Vonnegut did resolve his estrangement from his long time agent and they resumed their friendship.
One of the most amusing letters is from November, 1999, sent to Ms. Noel Sturgeon, daughter of the famous scifi author Theodore Sturgeon. Ms. Sturgeon wrote to Vonnegut, requesting that he write an introduction to a new edition of her father's short stories. Vonnegut's reply to her explained the relationship between Theodore Sturgeon, real life scifi author, and Kilgore Trout, fictional scifi author created by Vonnegut. Here Vonnegut explains once and for all, was Sturgeon the model for Trout:
Wakefield has grouped the letters by decade, and has written an introductory note to each section that frames the major events in Vonnegut's life during that period. This was very helpful. However, there were a few significant letters - most obviously, the angry letter Vonnegut writes after discovering that his second wife is having an affair - that Wakefield never addresses in his notes. Unless I read a biography of Vonnegut, I'm not going to learn the context of that letter.
Also, Wakefield did some editing of the body of the letters, for understandable reasons, removing addresses, phone numbers, and repetitions. However, his explanation for his edits appears in the afterword. I ended up baffled by the ellipses at the beginning, and searched through the book to find Wakefield's explanation at the back. I do think that would have been better placed at the beginning of the collection.
A letter, written just for a specific person, conveys so much more of the writer's personality than anything written for general public consumption like a blog post. And I do believe that the act of putting pen to paper makes a writer feel responsible to write something with thought behind it, unlike the many quick emails we dash off on a daily basis.
So all of you wonderful writers that I have addressed this review to, please, do your fans a favor and write some letters. Not emails, not blog posts, but real, honest to god, written thoughtfully on paper, LETTERS.
Dear Neil Gaiman, Christopher Barzak, and Maureen McHugh,
Dear Richard Russo, Ann Patchett, and Jonathan Lethem,
and dear Kevin Powers, dear Patrick Ness, and dear Erin Morganstern -
Twenty years from now, I don't want to read "The Collected Facebook Statuses of ." Nor do I want to read "The Collected Blog Posts of .", or even "The Twitter Feed of ."
Do you have a fellow author you mentor? Are you writing them letters? How about children, aunts, cousins, high school friends, teachers - do you sit down and write them a letter once in a while?
Please do.
I have just finished reading Letters by Kurt Vonnegut, edited by his friend and fellow author Dan Wakefield. I feel like a door has been opened into the mind and life of Mr. Vonnegut, and my impression of the man and his writing has been utterly changed and deepened.
I guess I had always assumed that Kurt Vonnegut was probably most like his character Kilgore Trout, the strange and stoically unsuccessful scifi author that is featured in many of Vonnegut's novels. Instead, I have come to know a man who cared passionately about his family - including his former wife Jane. He kept up a correspondence with many other writers, especially the authors he met while teaching at the Iowa Writer's Workshop. His encouragement and advice to these writers continued from the time he met them in the late sixties, all the way up until his death in 2007.
He also wrote to his teachers, army friends, and kept up a lifelong correspondence with friends from his high school in Indianapolis.
Vonnegut also felt very strongly about censorship and free speech. There are quite a few letters in this collection, previously unpublished, sent privately to the towns and school boards that proposed banning his works from their libraries.
Standout correspondence from Vonnegut that touched my heart were his tender, often apologetic letters to his daughter Nanny. Nanny appears to have had a difficult time with her parents divorce - more difficult than her parents, even, and Vonnegut time and again reassures her that the divorce had nothing to do with her or another woman. The letters are those of a man whose heart is laid bare:
Anytime you want to come here, do it. I have not schedule to upset, no secrets to hide, no privacy to guard from you. (Letters, p 177)
That's not to say that Vonnegut doesn't get a bit testy, a la Kilgore, from time to time. Difficulties with his agents and lawyers are documented in his letters. It's comforting to know, from editor Wakefield's notes, that Vonnegut did resolve his estrangement from his long time agent and they resumed their friendship.
One of the most amusing letters is from November, 1999, sent to Ms. Noel Sturgeon, daughter of the famous scifi author Theodore Sturgeon. Ms. Sturgeon wrote to Vonnegut, requesting that he write an introduction to a new edition of her father's short stories. Vonnegut's reply to her explained the relationship between Theodore Sturgeon, real life scifi author, and Kilgore Trout, fictional scifi author created by Vonnegut. Here Vonnegut explains once and for all, was Sturgeon the model for Trout:
We knew each other's work, but had never met. Bingo! There we were face-to-face at last, at suppertime in my living room.
Ted had been writing non-stop nor days or maybe weeks. He was skinny and haggard, underpaid and unappreciated outside the ghetto science fiction was then. He announced that he was going to do a standing back flip, which he did. He landed on his knees with a crash which shook the whole house. When he got back on his feet, humiliated and laughing in agony, one of the best writers in America was indeed, but only for a moment, my model for Kilgore Trout. (Letters, p388)
Wakefield has grouped the letters by decade, and has written an introductory note to each section that frames the major events in Vonnegut's life during that period. This was very helpful. However, there were a few significant letters - most obviously, the angry letter Vonnegut writes after discovering that his second wife is having an affair - that Wakefield never addresses in his notes. Unless I read a biography of Vonnegut, I'm not going to learn the context of that letter.
Also, Wakefield did some editing of the body of the letters, for understandable reasons, removing addresses, phone numbers, and repetitions. However, his explanation for his edits appears in the afterword. I ended up baffled by the ellipses at the beginning, and searched through the book to find Wakefield's explanation at the back. I do think that would have been better placed at the beginning of the collection.
A letter, written just for a specific person, conveys so much more of the writer's personality than anything written for general public consumption like a blog post. And I do believe that the act of putting pen to paper makes a writer feel responsible to write something with thought behind it, unlike the many quick emails we dash off on a daily basis.
So all of you wonderful writers that I have addressed this review to, please, do your fans a favor and write some letters. Not emails, not blog posts, but real, honest to god, written thoughtfully on paper, LETTERS.
July 17, 2025
"The only advice I have during this apocalypse? We should be unusually kind to one another certainly."
If your a fan of Vonnegut this is a must read it's the closest thing to a biography of his life. Seeing his early struggles as a writer after the war is kind of inspiring and the way he writes letters as if it's passages in one his novels is amazing. Such an honest and genuine person he doesn't hold anything back.
If your a fan of Vonnegut this is a must read it's the closest thing to a biography of his life. Seeing his early struggles as a writer after the war is kind of inspiring and the way he writes letters as if it's passages in one his novels is amazing. Such an honest and genuine person he doesn't hold anything back.
November 13, 2017
"Listy" to w zasadzie autobiografia Kurta. W korespondencji, która dotyczy często błahych spraw czy aktualnych, a z perspektywy czasu zapomnianych wydadzeń, wyłania się portret osoby ambitnej, prowadzącej ciekawe życie, ale w gruncie rzeczy zwyczajnej i szamoczącej się z życiem jak wielu innych przed i po nim.
Pouczająca lektura, prawdopodobnie dająca więcej, jeśli zna się twórczość autora, choć i bez tego powinna dać sporo satysfakcji.
Pouczająca lektura, prawdopodobnie dająca więcej, jeśli zna się twórczość autora, choć i bez tego powinna dać sporo satysfakcji.
February 7, 2023
DNF
It's not really doing anything for me, and feels like maybe these were never meant to be published. I feel like I'm intruding on his personal conversations.. lol and they are quite unessential
It's not really doing anything for me, and feels like maybe these were never meant to be published. I feel like I'm intruding on his personal conversations.. lol and they are quite unessential
August 5, 2022
“The horse jumped over the fucking fence.”
November 3, 2023
vonnegut will be my fave writer forever. a lovely man who radiated humour, kindness, and wisdom in his writing and daily life. 5 stars times a thousand
August 6, 2024
What is love? I received this book in the mail annotated by a friend. That is love. And now my camera roll is filled with the pages that enamored me.
May 12, 2017
Kurt Vonnegut witnessed the absolute best and worst of humanity in his lifetime. He survived the Dresden bombing, his mother committed suicide, and he and his wife adopted his sisters four children after she and her husband both died within a day of each other. I find him and his life fascinating. Some of these letters were monotonous, but most of them were subtly beautiful. My favorite letters were the ones to his children - so tender and sweet. Vonnegut is one of those people that I would list when asked, "Who would you most want to meet, living or dead?" My favorite passage:
"I am off to the city tomorrow, Thursday, and then to the outskirts of Chicago, to Harper College, where I will tell my audience about the pregnant woman who asked me in a letter if it was wrong to bring an innocent baby into a world as awful as this one. I told her that what made being alive most worthwhile for me was all the saints I met almost anywhere, people who were behaving decently in an indecent society. I will tell the audience that I hope some among them will become saints for her child to meet.."
"I am off to the city tomorrow, Thursday, and then to the outskirts of Chicago, to Harper College, where I will tell my audience about the pregnant woman who asked me in a letter if it was wrong to bring an innocent baby into a world as awful as this one. I told her that what made being alive most worthwhile for me was all the saints I met almost anywhere, people who were behaving decently in an indecent society. I will tell the audience that I hope some among them will become saints for her child to meet.."
July 10, 2023
I intend to call for a Constitutional Convention, in order to add four amendments to the Bill of Rights, guaranteeing that every newborn will be sincerely welcomed, that every young person upon reaching puberty will be declared an adult, that every citizen will be given worthwhile work to do, and that every citizen will be made to feel that he or she will be sincerely missed when he or she is dead.
notes: the purest of pleasures to read kv unadulterated. from a letter to his daughter, nanny, which i found particularly moving, on depression —
You have caught onto something I only learned in the past month or so—that terrific depressions are going to crunch me down at regular intervals, and that they have nothing to do with what is going on around me. Only now do I know what the problem is. So—only now can I begin to think about a partial solution. You’re right—a change of place makes little difference. Those awful dips still come. We inherited those regular dips. I scarcely know which ancestor to thank. People who live with us are likely to find us unpleasant and terribly self-centered when we’re down. There isn’t much sympathy for us when we’re on an automatic down. There shouldn’t be much sympathy, probably. Still— This is not to encourage you to have regular depressions, to be proud of the family disease. Get rid of it, if you can. I intend to try. I can at least know it for what it is, something I couldn’t do before. Again—I don’t want you to really dig the disease, so I shouldn’t tell you too much about my experiences with it. I have found, though, that I handle it best in solitude. People often find this insulting, the way we retreat. It’s a way of hanging onto dignity, though. There are better ways, maybe. I’ll ask a doctor what they are.
on his style —
In response to your question about the relationship of my style to jazz and comedians: I don’t think about it much, but, now that you’ve asked, it seems right to say that my writing is of a piece with the nightclub exhibitionism you witnessed in Davenport, lower class, intuitive, moody, and anxious to hold the attention of a potentially hostile audience, and quick (like a comic or a jazz musician) to change the subject or mood.
one of his best subjects is a beautiful passion for education and learning paired with an absolute disdain for elitism —
I lecture at all sorts of colleges and universities, and find torpor in the schools social climbers send their kids to, and all sorts of merriment and hope in urban schools like yours, whose diplomas are not famous for being tickets to establishments of the ruling class. Your students are miles ahead of the Ivy League, since they feel no obligation to pretend that America is something it obviously isn’t.
notes: the purest of pleasures to read kv unadulterated. from a letter to his daughter, nanny, which i found particularly moving, on depression —
You have caught onto something I only learned in the past month or so—that terrific depressions are going to crunch me down at regular intervals, and that they have nothing to do with what is going on around me. Only now do I know what the problem is. So—only now can I begin to think about a partial solution. You’re right—a change of place makes little difference. Those awful dips still come. We inherited those regular dips. I scarcely know which ancestor to thank. People who live with us are likely to find us unpleasant and terribly self-centered when we’re down. There isn’t much sympathy for us when we’re on an automatic down. There shouldn’t be much sympathy, probably. Still— This is not to encourage you to have regular depressions, to be proud of the family disease. Get rid of it, if you can. I intend to try. I can at least know it for what it is, something I couldn’t do before. Again—I don’t want you to really dig the disease, so I shouldn’t tell you too much about my experiences with it. I have found, though, that I handle it best in solitude. People often find this insulting, the way we retreat. It’s a way of hanging onto dignity, though. There are better ways, maybe. I’ll ask a doctor what they are.
on his style —
In response to your question about the relationship of my style to jazz and comedians: I don’t think about it much, but, now that you’ve asked, it seems right to say that my writing is of a piece with the nightclub exhibitionism you witnessed in Davenport, lower class, intuitive, moody, and anxious to hold the attention of a potentially hostile audience, and quick (like a comic or a jazz musician) to change the subject or mood.
one of his best subjects is a beautiful passion for education and learning paired with an absolute disdain for elitism —
I lecture at all sorts of colleges and universities, and find torpor in the schools social climbers send their kids to, and all sorts of merriment and hope in urban schools like yours, whose diplomas are not famous for being tickets to establishments of the ruling class. Your students are miles ahead of the Ivy League, since they feel no obligation to pretend that America is something it obviously isn’t.
February 23, 2021
Imagine being friends with your favorite author? I feel like I’m one of Vonnegut’s bosom buddies now that I’ve finally finished reading his letters. Took me a long while to read just because I wanted to savor them. I feel as if I know so much more about his life now. And I was inspired to get his ex-wife’s book about their family expansion when they adopted Vonnegut’s sister’s three children.
“During my last years with Jane, there was a formless anger in me which I could deal with only in solitude. Jane did not like it. There is no reason why she should. Nobody likes it. What is it? Well--if I had to guess, I would say that it was caused by a combination of bad chemicals in my bloodstream and the fact that my mother committed suicide. I have finally dealt with that suicide, by the way in the book I just finished. My mother appears in it briefly at the end, but keeps her distance -- because she is embarrassed by the suicide. And so she should be” (191).
Regarding the banning of his books . . . “Certain members of your community have suggested that my work is evil. This is extraordinarily insulting to me. The news from Drake indicates to me that books and writers are very unreal to you people. I am writing this letter to let you know how real I am” (208).
“They would have heard the word fuck by the time they were six, whether they had had me for a father or not. As for shit and piss: they spoke of almost nothing else when they were only three, which was surely their idea as much as mine. One man wrote me that he could learn more about sex from talking to a ten-year-old than he could from reading my collected works, which is true. Nowhere have I celebrated the use of any sort of drug, nor sexual promiscuity, nor bad citizenship” (323).
“Your latest book suggests to me why so many critics educated as gentlemen at prep schools and then old, elitist colleges and universities dislike my work. Gentlemen know of the void, but do not speak of it lest they alarm the lower classes, who might run amok” (349).
“ . . . I will be departing to lecture in Boston and then teach the next day. I intend to call for a Constitutional Convention, in order to add four amendments to the Bill of Rights, guaranteeing that every newborn will be sincerely welcomed, that every young person upon reaching puberty will be declared an adult, that every citizen will be given worthwhile work to do, and that every citizen will be made to feel that he or she will be sincerely missed when he or she is dead” (362).
“During my last years with Jane, there was a formless anger in me which I could deal with only in solitude. Jane did not like it. There is no reason why she should. Nobody likes it. What is it? Well--if I had to guess, I would say that it was caused by a combination of bad chemicals in my bloodstream and the fact that my mother committed suicide. I have finally dealt with that suicide, by the way in the book I just finished. My mother appears in it briefly at the end, but keeps her distance -- because she is embarrassed by the suicide. And so she should be” (191).
Regarding the banning of his books . . . “Certain members of your community have suggested that my work is evil. This is extraordinarily insulting to me. The news from Drake indicates to me that books and writers are very unreal to you people. I am writing this letter to let you know how real I am” (208).
“They would have heard the word fuck by the time they were six, whether they had had me for a father or not. As for shit and piss: they spoke of almost nothing else when they were only three, which was surely their idea as much as mine. One man wrote me that he could learn more about sex from talking to a ten-year-old than he could from reading my collected works, which is true. Nowhere have I celebrated the use of any sort of drug, nor sexual promiscuity, nor bad citizenship” (323).
“Your latest book suggests to me why so many critics educated as gentlemen at prep schools and then old, elitist colleges and universities dislike my work. Gentlemen know of the void, but do not speak of it lest they alarm the lower classes, who might run amok” (349).
“ . . . I will be departing to lecture in Boston and then teach the next day. I intend to call for a Constitutional Convention, in order to add four amendments to the Bill of Rights, guaranteeing that every newborn will be sincerely welcomed, that every young person upon reaching puberty will be declared an adult, that every citizen will be given worthwhile work to do, and that every citizen will be made to feel that he or she will be sincerely missed when he or she is dead” (362).
August 6, 2013
4.5 stars
The letters from the 1950s felt a little slow, but the 1960s and beyond really picked up and covered a broad range of subjects.
In a letter to Norman Mailer in 1960, Vonnegut wrote, “When society found out it was honoring works of art by censoring them, it stopped doing it.” (p. 78)
To Gail Godwin in 1967: “If you want to kind of try what I do, take life seriously but none of the people in it.” (p. 139)
The draft letter he sent in 1967 on behalf of his son, Mark, is particularly interesting (p.140), as is the famous letter he sent to Charles McCarthy in 1973 after the chairman burned Vonnegut’s books (p. 208). Throughout his letters, Vonnegut discusses the issue of censorship many times and praises the teachers who defend books. Another great example is a letter he wrote to William Kennedy, a secondary school teacher fighting to keep Vonnegut’s books in the classroom (see page 322).
To his wife Jane in 1974 he wrote that, “The secret of good writing is caring.” (p.221)
“For me, poems are presents to be exchanged within an extended family.” (p. 298)
In the 90s and 2000s, Vonnegut’s correspondence turns darker as more and more of his friends and colleagues die. “I do what I can, but it never seems enough,” he wrote to a friend (p. 352). I never expected to be putting my own generation to bed,” he writes on page 359. “But here I am, saying ‘Sleep tight’ to damn near everyone I ever cared about.”
I was surprised also to read that his relationship with wife Jill was not as strong as I thought and there was much fighting and talk of divorce.
Finally, it is Vonnegut’s writing advice that I think carries the most weight. A letter from 1996 offers such gems as “The secret to universality is provincialism,” and “A writer is first and foremost a teacher.” See page 368 for other great pieces of advice.
Overall, Vonnegut comes across as painfully human in this collection of work. He worried about his marriage and children and finances. Towards the end of his life, he believed he had no more great ideas to share or write about. I would have liked a bit more from the last ten years of his life, but this is a solid collection.
The letters from the 1950s felt a little slow, but the 1960s and beyond really picked up and covered a broad range of subjects.
In a letter to Norman Mailer in 1960, Vonnegut wrote, “When society found out it was honoring works of art by censoring them, it stopped doing it.” (p. 78)
To Gail Godwin in 1967: “If you want to kind of try what I do, take life seriously but none of the people in it.” (p. 139)
The draft letter he sent in 1967 on behalf of his son, Mark, is particularly interesting (p.140), as is the famous letter he sent to Charles McCarthy in 1973 after the chairman burned Vonnegut’s books (p. 208). Throughout his letters, Vonnegut discusses the issue of censorship many times and praises the teachers who defend books. Another great example is a letter he wrote to William Kennedy, a secondary school teacher fighting to keep Vonnegut’s books in the classroom (see page 322).
To his wife Jane in 1974 he wrote that, “The secret of good writing is caring.” (p.221)
“For me, poems are presents to be exchanged within an extended family.” (p. 298)
In the 90s and 2000s, Vonnegut’s correspondence turns darker as more and more of his friends and colleagues die. “I do what I can, but it never seems enough,” he wrote to a friend (p. 352). I never expected to be putting my own generation to bed,” he writes on page 359. “But here I am, saying ‘Sleep tight’ to damn near everyone I ever cared about.”
I was surprised also to read that his relationship with wife Jill was not as strong as I thought and there was much fighting and talk of divorce.
Finally, it is Vonnegut’s writing advice that I think carries the most weight. A letter from 1996 offers such gems as “The secret to universality is provincialism,” and “A writer is first and foremost a teacher.” See page 368 for other great pieces of advice.
Overall, Vonnegut comes across as painfully human in this collection of work. He worried about his marriage and children and finances. Towards the end of his life, he believed he had no more great ideas to share or write about. I would have liked a bit more from the last ten years of his life, but this is a solid collection.
September 23, 2013
"I am enchanted by the Sermon on the Mount. Being merciful, it seems to me, is the only good idea we have received so far."
"I don't imagine things, understand, and I don't do strange things, and I don't write incoherently. It's just that I don't seem to be very nice or useful or enthusiastic anymore."
"'If this isn't good, what is?' He says it often. It's a fine line."
"They don't know how great I am yet. It will take them about six weeks to understand."
"Sometimes the classes go good, sometimes they go lousy. That's show business."
"I received a report recently to the effect that you have been exceptionally blue--and it makes me so God damned sad. Please, buddy-- won't you do things about it? Life could be so great for you."
"I keep thinking that I can't do anything, which is dead wrong."
"Something telepathic has busted between us, and I don't know how to fix it."
"He will not hate. He will not kill. There's hope in that. There's no hope in war."
"We have a saying around here: 'Mark knows what he's doing.' We believe it. We love you. We respect you. We think you will have a wonderful life."
"As Colonel Littauer said to me one time, when I was bitter about being broke: 'Who asked you to be a writer in the first place?'"
"I admire fiction, am amused and excited by the oversimplification of life it represents. I don't want to become a character in fiction myself, however, and I want to get along very well with you. So you can do me an enormous favor by thinking of me as a person afloat in time, as you are, rather than as a character locked into the machinery of a fiction plot, with villains and temptresses and so on. The hell of it is that it is so easy to turn anybody's life into some kind of story we have heard before."
"I told her that what made being alive almost worthwhile for me was all the saints I met almost anywhere, people who were behaving decently in an indecent society. I will tell the audience that I hope some among them will become saints for her child to meet."
"Keep your hat on. We may wind up miles from here."
"What a crabby old poop!"
"I don't imagine things, understand, and I don't do strange things, and I don't write incoherently. It's just that I don't seem to be very nice or useful or enthusiastic anymore."
"'If this isn't good, what is?' He says it often. It's a fine line."
"They don't know how great I am yet. It will take them about six weeks to understand."
"Sometimes the classes go good, sometimes they go lousy. That's show business."
"I received a report recently to the effect that you have been exceptionally blue--and it makes me so God damned sad. Please, buddy-- won't you do things about it? Life could be so great for you."
"I keep thinking that I can't do anything, which is dead wrong."
"Something telepathic has busted between us, and I don't know how to fix it."
"He will not hate. He will not kill. There's hope in that. There's no hope in war."
"We have a saying around here: 'Mark knows what he's doing.' We believe it. We love you. We respect you. We think you will have a wonderful life."
"As Colonel Littauer said to me one time, when I was bitter about being broke: 'Who asked you to be a writer in the first place?'"
"I admire fiction, am amused and excited by the oversimplification of life it represents. I don't want to become a character in fiction myself, however, and I want to get along very well with you. So you can do me an enormous favor by thinking of me as a person afloat in time, as you are, rather than as a character locked into the machinery of a fiction plot, with villains and temptresses and so on. The hell of it is that it is so easy to turn anybody's life into some kind of story we have heard before."
"I told her that what made being alive almost worthwhile for me was all the saints I met almost anywhere, people who were behaving decently in an indecent society. I will tell the audience that I hope some among them will become saints for her child to meet."
"Keep your hat on. We may wind up miles from here."
"What a crabby old poop!"
March 4, 2013
IF THIS ISN'T NICE, I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS.
I want to thank Dan Wakefield for the wonderful job putting together Kurt Vonnegut’s Letters. I believe I have read just about everything of Kurt's that has been published although my memory of details of the books is growing weaker as we speak. I do know that I read his first published story from Colliers – although it was from a bound version of the magazine that I happened upon in my home town library in 1959 or ‘60 I can’t imagine how I happened upon it – and I didn’t remember his name from that time. Sometime in the 60’s I discovered him for real – while at IU Bloomington in the mid 60’s at least. I have never read anything by him I didn’t like a lot. His sensibility was there in everything he wrote. I was especially amazed to read the most recent 2 collections of his previously unpublished writings and to find that they were all first rate. From reading this book, I now see that his stories being or not being published was due to the luck of the draw and the market at the time they were written and nothing to do with their quality. Just hearing his side of the letters sometimes makes me want more info but I think this is the proper way. If you like Vonnegut, you will love this book. When he is mad at someone, it is because they deserve it. He is not afraid to tell those he love that he does love them. He was a national treasurer and a truly good person. We need all of these we can get.
I want to thank Dan Wakefield for the wonderful job putting together Kurt Vonnegut’s Letters. I believe I have read just about everything of Kurt's that has been published although my memory of details of the books is growing weaker as we speak. I do know that I read his first published story from Colliers – although it was from a bound version of the magazine that I happened upon in my home town library in 1959 or ‘60 I can’t imagine how I happened upon it – and I didn’t remember his name from that time. Sometime in the 60’s I discovered him for real – while at IU Bloomington in the mid 60’s at least. I have never read anything by him I didn’t like a lot. His sensibility was there in everything he wrote. I was especially amazed to read the most recent 2 collections of his previously unpublished writings and to find that they were all first rate. From reading this book, I now see that his stories being or not being published was due to the luck of the draw and the market at the time they were written and nothing to do with their quality. Just hearing his side of the letters sometimes makes me want more info but I think this is the proper way. If you like Vonnegut, you will love this book. When he is mad at someone, it is because they deserve it. He is not afraid to tell those he love that he does love them. He was a national treasurer and a truly good person. We need all of these we can get.
April 24, 2016
This is not a book that ought be read cover to cover. Rather, it is like a project that one should chip away at from time to time. In one dose, it is simply too much Vonnegut, if ever there can be such a thing. But well worth it.
While I suspect that readers who do not revere the Late Kurt Vonnegut Jr. will find there to be less attraction to this work, there are still many interesting elements within it. It truly is his autobiography, written over his lifetime. How could he have known? But we see a whole life; the struggling author, the man building and supporting his family, his unexpected success, and more. I also found the struggle between his pride and is innate self-deprecation to be fascinating. In so many cases he states how he is an inferior writer to so many of his contemporaries, but in other cases he fights for respect as one of the literati.
In the backdrop is also the simple story of a man who lived as an adult through the last half of the 20th century, and there is a subtle history of that time throughout.
But most importantly for me, I found that by reading his letters I confirmed what I always suspected. His books were completely reflective of his world view. He never wrote what others wanted to here, instead he wrote what he thought was important and became a legend.
My opinion, at least.
While I suspect that readers who do not revere the Late Kurt Vonnegut Jr. will find there to be less attraction to this work, there are still many interesting elements within it. It truly is his autobiography, written over his lifetime. How could he have known? But we see a whole life; the struggling author, the man building and supporting his family, his unexpected success, and more. I also found the struggle between his pride and is innate self-deprecation to be fascinating. In so many cases he states how he is an inferior writer to so many of his contemporaries, but in other cases he fights for respect as one of the literati.
In the backdrop is also the simple story of a man who lived as an adult through the last half of the 20th century, and there is a subtle history of that time throughout.
But most importantly for me, I found that by reading his letters I confirmed what I always suspected. His books were completely reflective of his world view. He never wrote what others wanted to here, instead he wrote what he thought was important and became a legend.
My opinion, at least.
February 26, 2022
My interest in this litany of letters was especially piqued, now six years back, by an Indianapolis Monthly magazine article that excerpted the book. Overall, this massive batch of letters is typically Kurt, by turns droll and dry. I admittedly did not quite finish it. (I've decided to be OK with that anymore; I'm freshly 40!) My favorites in this lot were the absurd-and-endearing courtship notes between Vonnegut's future wife, Jane, and him, as well as those in which he amusingly despaired (or faux-despaired) about various rejections from publishers. It's so funny now to see how navel-gazing or self-satisfied some of them were, and notably, the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library Indianapolis has a fantastic set of them on display in physical form. (By the by, as Vonnegut-adjacent trivia, comedian Lewis Black recently joined that library's board.) In a number of notes to folks in his sphere, Vonnegut ruminated about how great it would be to show up those prickly would-be publishers someday. The well-worn beauty of it all is that there would come a day.
April 5, 2014
I felt about Vonnegut's Letters much the same as I felt about Feynman's. That same wondering about the relative virtues of completeness and quality, with not every letter being a gem by any means but there being plenty of good stuff in there, making for compelling reading, such that by the end, which came quickly, I felt strong warmth to a seemingly fine man. And humbled to have access to his thoughts right up to the end of his long life.
Favourite quote: I find myself wondering about rattlesnakes and lightning bugs. Only a completely humorless person could believe that such preposterously elaborate Dr Seuss creatures could be the result of judicious shopping in the marriage market, so to speak. I have the same problem with the Big Bang theory. Anybody with a sense of humor has to laugh.
Favourite quote: I find myself wondering about rattlesnakes and lightning bugs. Only a completely humorless person could believe that such preposterously elaborate Dr Seuss creatures could be the result of judicious shopping in the marriage market, so to speak. I have the same problem with the Big Bang theory. Anybody with a sense of humor has to laugh.
January 7, 2013
This collection helps piece together the man that Vonnegut was, helping one see some of the reasons he chose to write the things he did. As a fan of Kurt's who was very sad to see him go, it was a pleasure to get a feel for the changes--as well as the consistencies--in his character chronicled throughout his eight decades. The book, although fragmented, achieves a bit of a narrative, and some of the insights within personal letters pertaining to events and the contemporary state of the world are intriguing, seeing as they are viewed through Kurt's voluntarily Luddite spectacles and his 85 years.
Although Kurt had no intentions of these letters being read by any save for their recipients, fans of Kurt can get a better feel for the man. For those expecting the ironic narratives typical of Kurt, look elsewhere.
An enjoyable collection for fans familiar with his works.
Although Kurt had no intentions of these letters being read by any save for their recipients, fans of Kurt can get a better feel for the man. For those expecting the ironic narratives typical of Kurt, look elsewhere.
An enjoyable collection for fans familiar with his works.
May 6, 2013
I'd never read a book of letters before, but as it was Vonnegut... Glad I did anyway, as this was a consistently enjoyable, interesting, easy read. It's no real surprise to find that Vonnegut was an excellent letter writer. I must say that his second wife Jill Krementz does not come out of this looking very good... It's interesting too to see how quick Vonnegut could be to defend himself when he felt he had been misrepresented, and he also displays a readiness to be extremely direct even when it risks hurting the feelings of people he clearly cares about. Dan Wakefield has done a first-rate job of putting all this together and provides useful introductory chapters for each decade. The book offers a fascinating insight into the life and work of Vonnegut and I would recommend it highly to all of his admirers.
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